Cardiac Services |
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Cardiac Services |
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The Royal Alexandra Hospital’s Cardiac Sciences Program is the largest center providing adult non-surgical cardiology services within the Capital Health Region, and supports Central and Northern Alberta as well as neighboring Provinces and Territories.
The Cardiac Sciences program consists of a Coronary Care Unit, an Inpatient Cardiology Ward, two Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories with Recovery Room and numerous outpatient clinic and diagnostic services.
A dedicated team of Cardiologists, Advanced Nurse Practitioners, Nurses, Educators, a Social Worker, Physiotherapist, Occupational Therapist, Respiratory Therapist, Dietician and Pharmacist, along with administrative and support staff work together to provide collaborative, comprehensive and quality patient care.
At approximately 4500 procedures per year, the two Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories at this site are among the busiest and most efficient labs in Canada. The program has an excellent reputation for providing same day service for patients when a diagnostic angiogram indicates the need for an angioplasty procedure.
The Cardiac Sciences program prides itself on quality improvement initiatives and is very active in clinical research as well as best practice and outcomes research. The program looks at various aspects of heart disease to determine the best methods of prevention, diagnosis, treatment and rehabilitation.
As one of the seven hospitals providing cardiac care in Capital Health, the Royal Alexandra Hospital (RAH) plays a vital role in providing patients with some of Canada's best cardiac services.
The RAH is unique in Canada in the volume of angioplasty (non-surgical opening of blocked blood vessels) procedures completed without back-up surgery on site. The regional cardiac program in Capital Health provides surgical back-up when needed, just 10 minutes away at the University of Alberta Hospital.
In-patients from the Northwest Territories and central and northern Alberta are routinely transferred directly to the RAH and the UAH for non-surgical treatment. This has involved close coordination between cardiologists at both sites and with physicians in rural communities.
In 1981, the RAH became the first hospital in Alberta to perform coronary interventions. During the past 10 years, about 6,000 patients have benefited from this procedure with a success rate of 95 per cent and a complication rate of only 1.45 per cent. Of 2,000 patients who underwent coronary interventions during the last two years, the success rate was 97.6 per cent and no patient required emergency bypass due to failure of these procedures.
